In light of the Trustees Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity that is working to develop recommendations for strategies to attract and retain more diverse campus community members, (including people of color and women, in areas where the University’s efforts to advance diversity have had more limited success), we offer this historical timeline.

The mid to late 19th century sees the first wave of democratization of collegiate education, including creation of the land grant universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), women’s colleges, and early coeducation.

1837: Cheyney University of Pennsylvania founded as the nation’s first HBCU. In the same year, Mount Holyoke College opened, making it the oldest remaining higher education institution for women.

1856: The African Methodist Episcopal church founded Wilberforce University, which is the first black school of higher learning that was owned and operated by African Americans. Records suggest that Mt. Pisgah A.M.E. church in Princeton, NJ, was involved in fundraising efforts for Wilberforce.

1862: The Morrill Land Grant Act authorizes states to use the proceeds from the sale of public lands to establish state colleges of agriculture and the mechanical arts.

1865: The Freedman Bureau—initially known as the Federal Bureau of Refugees, Freedman and Abandoned Lands—was created. The bureau was instrumental in founding a number of HBCU’s in 1867, including, Howard University in Washington, D.C., Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, St. Augustine College in Raleigh, North Carolina, Atlanta University in Georgia, and in 1868, Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia.

1876: Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, opens the first medical school in the South for African Americans.

1881: Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, became the first college formally founded for African American women. In the same year, Booker T. Washington founded The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, now known as Tuskegee University.

1900: A consortium of colleges and universities develops the Common Entrance Exam, which will evolve in 1926 into the SAT.

1909: Woodrow Wilson protects Princeton’s racial homogeneity, writing that it would be “altogether inadvisable for a colored man to enter.”

1922: Princeton changes undergraduate admissions procedures to include greater consideration of subjective non-academic criteria, largely in order to limit admission of Jewish applicants.

Mid-century, there is renewed national movement toward democratization of access to higher education.

1942: Princeton belatedly admits its first African American undergraduates in conjunction with the Navy’s V-12 program. This federal government program was designed to select and train highly qualified men for commissioning as officers in the Navy.

1944: Congress passes the GI Bill of Rights, which provides WWII veterans with benefits including education grants. This year also marked the establishment of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) by Frederick D. Patterson, for which was organized to help support African American college students. At Princeton, John Leroy Howard is the first to graduate from the Navy’s V-12 program.

1948: James Everett Ward and Arthur Jewell Wilson, Jr. both admitted to the Navy’s V-12 Program in 1945 graduate from Princeton. On August 24th, Princeton issued a statement to the Judiciary Committee on the Assembly of the State Legislature in response to the Proposed Act Assembly 512, legislation that challenged discriminatory practices in institutions of higher learning in NJ: “It is, however, the position of Princeton University that discriminatory practices in a private educational institutions cannot be corrected, in any fundamental or long-range manner, by police legislation. The only sound prescription for their eradication is to provide a climate in which they cannot thrive. No punitive law can create such a climate.”

1951: Princeton University conferred the Doctor of Laws honorary degree upon activist, intellectual, and politician Ralph Johnson Bunch, making him the first African American to receive such an honor from the college. In addition, Joseph Ralph Moss was the first African American admitted after the war in the fall of 1947. He graduated on June 12, 1951.

1957: The “Little Rock Nine” integrates Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.

1958: In response to the Cold War, Congress authorizes the National Defense Education Act, which provides federal aid to improve the teaching of math, science and foreign languages and creates the first federal loans for higher education.

1959: Princeton University conferred the Doctor of Humanities honorary degree upon opera singer Marian Anderson, making her the first African American woman to receive such an honor from the college.

1960: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed by an interracial group of college students. SNCC was instrumental in helping to energize college students and encouraged their involvement in the Civil Rights movement, particularly sit-ins and freedom rides.

1962: James Meredith was the first African American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi.

1963: The Princeton Cooperative School-College program was established, aiming to “enlarge the pool of qualified Negro candidates for higher education.” It later sought to include students from other socio-economically disadvantaged groups from area public and private schools.

1964: Princeton awards a Ph.D degree to a woman, T’sai-ying Cheng, for the first time. In the same year, Princeton ends compulsory chapel for freshmen.

By the mid-1960s, access to higher education is increasingly viewed as a social justice imperative and corrective “Affirmative Action” measure for under-represented populations. Major federal legislation expands protections for a variety of populations. Private colleges and universities begin to redefine their role as the educators of societal leaders to include women and members of minority groups in the leadership cadre.

1968: Carl A. Fields is appointed as assistant dean of the college, becoming the first African American to serve as dean at an Ivy League institution. In the same year, Suzanne Keller becomes the first tenured female member of the faculty and Henry and Cecelia Drewry were hired to teach Princeton’s first courses in black history and culture. In October and November, the Committee for Black Awareness submitted proposals pertaining to improving the recruitment efforts, admission and experience of African American graduate students at the college.

1969: Princeton trustees vote to admit women to the undergraduate student body. In this same year, the Ford foundation donated $1 million dollars to Howard University, Yale, and Morgan State University to help prepare faculty members to teach African American studies courses.

1971: Third World Center (now Carl A. Fields Center) and Women’s Center founded. This same year, Swann v. Charlotte Mecklenburg (1971) made the busing of students for the purpose of promoting integration in public schools constitutional. This case was suggestive of how the nation was still grappling with the implementation of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

1972: Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bans discrimination on the basis of gender.

1974: A group of Princeton’s Puerto Rican and Chicano students, which included Sonia Sotomayor, petitioned the Office of Health, Education, and Welfare to review the college’s Affirmative Action policy, particularly, what the students charged were Princeton’s deficiencies in addressing the concerns of Puerto Rican and Chicano students. Thereafter, Sotomayor went on to propose the first student initiated seminar on the history and politics of Puerto-Rico to be administered in the spring of 1974.

1973: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act guarantees civil rights for people with disabilities in the context of federally-funded institutions.

1978: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision condemns use of quotas in college admission but concludes that it is permissible to take race into account, as one among several factors, in seeking to secure the educational benefits of diversity. Justice Powell’s decision quotes President William Bowen’s writing on the value of diversity.

During the 1980s and 1990s, definitions of diversity in a higher education context broaden to include a wider range of difference in experience and background, including disabilities, religion, socio-economic class, sexual orientation, national origin, etc. Workplace conceptions of diversity as a form of competitive advantage, particularly in a globalized world, enter the national dialogue.

1995: Ethnic studies protest waged by students at Princeton culminated with a sit-in at Nassau Hall. The students were calling for a more diverse liberal arts curriculum that would include Asian and Latin American studies.

1998: Princeton takes first major steps to transform its financial aid policies, followed in 2001 by the ground-breaking “no-loan” policy.

2002: Princeton’s Office of the Vice President for Campus Life launched the Bildner Fund for the Advancement of Diversity on Campus. These funds were used to support programming and projects dealing with race, ethnicity, gender, faith, class, social justice, among others issues.

2003: Supreme Court upholds the affirmative action policies of the University of Michigan in Grutter v. Bollinger.

2005: Princeton launches the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center.

2006: Princeton launches the Office of Disabilities Services.

2007: Princeton announces a strategic plan to expand its international initiatives. In addition, the Center for African American Studies (CAAS) opens in Stanhope Hall.

2009: Princeton hires the country’s first full-time college Hindu Chaplain. Also, the program in Latino Studies is established during this year.

2011: Princeton’s Program in Women and Gender Studies changed its name to the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies to “reflect the new development and changing focus of scholarship in the field.”

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Malcolm Warnock, the oldest known living Princeton undergraduate alumnus of all time, has passed away at the age of 107. Malcolm Roe Warnock was a part of the Class of 1925.

Malcom Warnock at Reunions 2008.

Photo Courtesy Princeton Alumni Weekly

The unofficial distinguished title of the Oldest Princeton Undergraduate was designated to Mr. Warnock after a search of the index of PAW Memorials published between 1894 and 2012 for undergraduate alumni who died 80 or more years after graduation.

The following list shows other than Mr. Warnock, the ten oldest Princetonians:

Charles “Cupid” E. Whitehouse Jr. ‘1915 , who died 1995 at the age of 100

Walton Clark Jr. ‘1908, who died in 1987 at the age of 99

Carl F. Hinrichsen ‘1907, who died in 1985 at the age of 97

While a student at Princeton, Warnock was listed as a member of the Key and Seal Club.

In addition to the honor of being the Oldest Princeton Undergraduate, Mr. Warnock was also the first person to return for his 87th Reunion, as well as having been given the 1923 Class cane a record number eight times in 2012.

Malcolm Warnock is survived by his two daughters, Margaret Carlough and Elanor Warnock.

In 1959, not even three months after he came to power, Fidel Castro was invited to speak to a small group of undergraduate students and faculty members of the Woodrow Wilson School. In a recent donation to the University Archives, we received some key items related to Castro’s visit, including this letter of invitation.

Ultimately, Castro did accept the invitation and spoke for the Woodrow Wilson School’s Special Program in American Civilization. Admission to the program was by invitation only, and it was held in Wilson Hall, now known as Corwin Hall.

These materials were donated by Ambassador Paul D. Taylor ’60 and include a carbon copy of three pages of notes of excerpts from Castro’s speech taken by Taylor.

The rest of Castro’s visit included a tour of campus with President Goheen ’40 as well as being the guest of honor at the Present Day Club in town.

During his visit, Castro stayed in the home of Mr. & Mrs. Roland T. Ely ’46. Below is a piece of biographical information that is included in the Historical Subject Files: Box 309, Folder 20.

If you would like to learn more about Castro’s visit, please search the digitized archives of The Daily Princetonian.

The following links are just two of the articles related to Castro’s visit.

The author of “Princeton: America’s Campus” will host a discussion with The New Jersey Historical Commission later this month. The book, by Barksdale Maynard, Princeton Class of 1988, features many photographs from the Historical Photograph Collection housed here at the University Archives at Mudd Manuscript Library.

His most recent book “Princeton: America’s Campus” is the second book Maynard wrote on a Princeton topic and his third on architecture.

Founded in 1746, Princeton is America’s fourth-oldest university and one of the most beautiful places in the country. Its secrets are revealed in Barksdale Maynard’s new, landmark publication, Princeton: America’s Campus, the first book ever to deal exclusively with the architectural history of the university. The author of five prize-winning books, including the acclaimed Woodrow Wilson: Princeton to the Presidency, Barksdale Maynard has uncovered surprising new information about Princeton’s centuries-old campus along with hundreds of historic photographs never reproduced before. (From the book jacket.)

The discussion will be hosted at Drumthwacket, the former estate of the prominent Princeton University alumnus and benefactor Moses Taylor Pyne, Class of 1877–and now the official residence of the Governor–for the the launch of the Historical Commission’s series “New in New Jersey.”

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Civil War exhibition reveals sectional fissures within college and town.

“Your True Friend and Enemy”: Princeton and the Civil War, a new exhibition at Princeton University’s Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, examines life at the college and within the town of Princeton against the backdrop of the War Between the States. Through the eyes of students, faculty, and townspeople—including women and African Americans—the exhibition provides a local view of this watershed event in American history. It opens on September 17, 2012, the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, after which President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

“Each case features something related to Abraham Lincoln,” said Dan Linke, the head of the Mudd Manuscript Library and one of the four exhibition curators. “We have student accounts of his pre-inaugural speech in Trenton and then his funeral train, as well as an alumnus soldier’s diary noting the assassination. Perhaps the most significant item is the three-page handwritten letter sent by Lincoln to the college president accepting an honorary degree. It is one of the University’s treasured possessions and what a former dean called ‘among the title deeds to our Americanism.’”

Letters and documents drawn from the University Archives at the Mudd Manuscript Library and from other units of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, as well as the Historical Society of Princeton, demonstrate how sectional differences affected student life and how the bonds of friendship transcended the national conflict. The exhibition also illuminates how Princetonians and the university have commemorated the war and preserved the memory of fallen student and alumni soldiers.

Mudd Library staff members Christie Lutz, Brenda Tindal, and Kristen Turner also curated the exhibition. “This exhibit shows how both local communities—the College of New Jersey and Princeton—grappled with the impact of the Civil War and responded to the crisis in a variety of ways.” said Turner. “The story is more nuanced and complicated than you may remember from your history books.”

“Your True Friend and Enemy”: Princeton and the Civil War is free and open to the public in the Wiess Lounge at the Mudd Manuscript Library, 65 Olden Street, until June 1, 2013.The exhibition is open from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday. An open house will be held at Mudd Library from 10 a.m. until noon on Saturday, October 20, 2012. A behind-the-scenes tour will start at 10:30 a.m.

by: Professor Samuel Walker

School of Criminal Justice

University of Nebraska at Omaha

The fight for civil liberties during World War I originated with the Civil Liberties Bureau (CLB), formed as a committee of the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM) immediately after the United States declared war on April 6, 1917. Led by Crystal Eastman and Roger Baldwin, the Bureau lobbied Congress and the Wilson administration regarding provisions for conscientious objectors in the Selective Service Act and provided advice to young men facing the draft. Leaders of the parent AUAM, however, soon thought these activities would alienate the administration of President Woodrow Wilson and as a result the Bureau became a separate organization, the National Civil Liberties Bureau in the fall of 1917. In 1918 Military Intelligence began investigating the NCLB for violations of the Espionage Act, and finally on August 30, 1918 the Justice Department raided the NCLB office and seized its records. (See the documents in the topic, The National Civil Liberties Bureau and the Woodrow Wilson Administration.) Prosecution appeared possible, but never occurred. In January 1920 the NCLB was reconstituted as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). (See the documents in the topic, The Founding of the ACLU.)

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The AUAM pamphlet, Concerning Conscription, circa May-June 1917, presents its views regarding selective service and conscientious objection to participation in war, while Congress was debating the selective service bill. The principal issues involved the criteria for eligibility as a conscientious objector.

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The AUAM handbill, circa May-June 1917, while Congress was still debating the selective service bill. It attacks the idea of a draft and argues for a completely voluntary system for military service.

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These three April 1917 letters between the AUAM and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker reflect the close and cordial relations between members of the Wilson administration and the civil libertarians in the early months of the war. These individuals knew each other from their pre-war progressive reform activities. Baker, for example, had been a reform mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. The AUAM memorandum here sets forth its views on what categories of people should be eligible for conscientious objector status. The cordial relations ended in the spring of 1918 when Military Intelligence and some Justice Department officials concluded that the NCLB was violating the Espionage Act.

This May 15-17, 1917 correspondence with Frank Walsh, a Kansas City, Missouri, attorney discusses a possible legal challenge to the constitutionality of the draft. Walsh was a prominent Progressive Era reformer and advocate of the labor movement. Some antiwar and pacifist leaders regarded the draft as a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court eventually rejected this argument.

The AUAM pamphlet, Constitutional Rights in War-Time (May 1917) represents the organization’s first formal statement of the range of civil liberties issues at the outset of the war.

by: Professor Samuel Walker

School of Criminal Justice

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Roger Baldwin and Crystal Eastman began their work with the Civil Liberties Bureau confident that they had good relations with officials in the Woodrow Wilson administration. Many of these people knew each other from their pre-war work on Progressive Era reform. Beginning in early 1918, however, Military Intelligence and the Justice Department began to regard the Bureau’s work as a violation of the Espionage Act, on the grounds that it encouraged draft age young men to either not register for the draft or refuse to participate if drafted. The documents in this section reveal the deterioration of the relationship between the Bureau and the Wilson administration and the final break. Particularly shocking to modern perspectives, Baldwin tried to maintain the relationship by cooperating with the government, even to the point of offering to cease certain actions and also by providing confidential information to government officials. In the end, the Justice Department raided the Civil Liberties Bureau office (along with the offices of many other organizations) on August 30, 1918.

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These letters from Roger Baldwin to Frederick Keppel, Third Assistant Secretary of War and Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, June 1917, offers his assurance of his eagerness to cooperate with the Wilson administration. Keppel had been a Dean at Columbia University, and Baker had been a noted reform mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. Baldwin states that “We are entirely at the service of the War Department.”

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This cordial letter of July 7, 1917 from Secretary of War Baker to Roger Baldwin indicates the degree of trust and cooperation that prevailed in the early months of the war.

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This cordial letter to Roger Baldwin of September 27, 1917 from Felix Frankfurter, an official in the War Department, thanks Baldwin and other civil libertarians for their helpful efforts and expresses confidence that the concerns of the Civil Liberties Bureau will be resolved. Frankfurter was not directly involved in any civil liberties issues during the war, and did not object to the government’s actions. He became a member of the ACLU National Committee in 1920 and was appointed a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1939.

Before the pomp and circumstance of reunions and Princeton University’s 265th commencement fades into memory, it is worth noting that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Class of 1972 because in many ways, this class bore witness to the revolutionary transformations taking place across the country. These students entered college during the tumult of the civil rights and women’s movements, and the Vietnam War with its anti-war protests. Perhaps, they too, were shocked by the news of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights patriarch Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassinations. In any case, Princeton and many other universities were not immune to the changes taking place nationally; in fact, some college campuses served as theaters for such social and political unrest.

For instance, in a subtle display of resistance, the student editors of the 1972 Bric-a-Brac, Princeton’s undergraduate yearbook, deviated from its traditional format—for what appears to be the first and only time—with the issuance of a two-volume annual, in hopes that “no one will construe [their] presentation as being characteristic of any particular student or Princeton ‘type.’” To this end, they assembled images of nuns at the colleges’ athletic events; photos of the bohemian variety of long-haired, bearded, and afro wearing Princetonians; and a psychedelic iteration of Nassau Hall’s clock tower. Moreover, Robert F. Goheen, then the president of the college, concluded his term as an agent of change and arbiter of diversity, exiting Princeton with several notches under his proverbial belt, including the hiring of Carl A. Fields, the first black administrator at an Ivy League college, and the admission of women in 1969. In addition, at their commencement, the Class of 1972 observed John Hope Franklin, renowned scholar of African American history, and Alvin Ailey, choreographer and founder of one of the most noted black repertory companies in the world, receive honorary degrees from Princeton.

Vera can be seen on the left second from the top.

Missing from the 1972 commencement and this narrative of tumult and triumph is the story of Vera Marcus, the first known undergraduate African American woman to graduate from the college as a “Princetonian.” For Ms. Marcus, the latter point is particularly important. To be sure, women were part of the intellectual and social life of the college long before Marcus entered in 1969. For example, there was the founding of Evelyn College for Women in 1887; the imprint left by the wives of deans and faculty members, such as Isabella McCosh, the wife of President McCosh and beloved 19th century figure of the college; the admittance of women as graduate students in the 1960s; and the presence of young women from neighboring colleges, who participated in a year-long concentrated study in “critical languages.” However, the caveat, as Ms. Marcus explains: “what distinguishes [her] class is that [they] were admitted as Princetonians and graduated as Princetonians.”